Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-09-06
THE SONS OF VETERANS

THE SONS OF VETERANS
The organization knesens1s Sons of Vet
erns is taking on very much Of import
ance. The fact was made especially prom
inent az St. Louis. The Committee e;f
Arrangements for tic forthcoming En-
campnent of the Grand Army of the Re
public gave the Sons'of Veterans no place
in the grand procession. The latter pro-
tested, and though the committee some
time held out, the sentiment against them
was 50 strong that they presently yielded,
and the new order will appear By repre-
sentative marching bodies in the process
sion. 1t is intended to supplement the
Grand Army of the Republic, and in time
receive from the last of that band the
relics of its vaior, and guard and preserve
the records O. its days of activity. It
Is to serve the purpose of aiding in the
perpetuation'of the memories of the he
roic achievements of patriotic purpose.
The spirit of loyalty to free government
and the principles of human liberty is not
likely to be too much cultivated. nor is
there any danger whatever that the duty
will be overdone of doing honor ito the
men whom the hour of the nations peril
voluntarily came to its rescue.
AS the deeds of these men recede in the
lengthening aveLu. of time, the American
people will view them with more and
more of the regard that is akin to rever-
ence. The days of the war are yet too
near to the present for the symmetrical
proportions of the great achievement of
saving the Union to stand out in all their
nobility and grandeur. In the history
that is to be written half a century hence
the patriotism of the era of the civil war
will be more conspicuously displayed, and
higher homage paid to il than is possible
in the present
1t is not probable that such another
mighty struggle as that of the American
civil war, or such lofty patriotic devotion
to republican institutions as characterized
the heroes who won peace and saved the
Union, will mark the years of any early
century. Indeed, hundreds of years NAV
roll away before there will be occasion for
1.-THE of such a sacrifice of loyal hearts
as were offered up in the sixties" 1t is,
indeed, probable that the most heroic era
OF all the history of the nation has come
and gone. Thirty years hence the young
men to-day enrolled as the Sons of Veter-
ans will in their advanced manhood be
vastly prouder Of their paternity than at
this day. They will be looked upon by
the generation no Y in infancy with almost
the same regard with which we now hold
the heroes of the Union. The new order,
though but six years old, has organiza-
tons IN twenty-nine States and six Terri
tories; its roll Of membership Numbers
32,804, and it Is extending rapidly in the
Southern as well as the Northern States
We see for the order, if kept free from
political bias and sectional prejudice. and
II constantly animated by the spirit of
pure loyalty to free institutions, most
useful future. 1t will come by natural
succession to the duty of laying away the
last OF the veterans, and when they shall
be diminished to a band of but a score or
more, the whole nation will look to the
new order as their guardians, as well as the
trustee of the honor of the hun
dreds of thousands once enrolled in
The Grand Army of the Republic.
In very few years more
the old veterans will cease marching; they
will gather in fewer and diminishing
numbers at the national encampmepts
until no more will be held forever; the
Post camp-fres will gradually die out in
very short time there will be so slender
rally about the Posts that consultations
VIII become necessary in order to preserve
even the form of the organization but
little later on the Posts will cease to meet
and pass into history, and shortly after
the last Of the veterans will ride in his
carriage on the occasion of our national
celebrations, as profound an object of in
terest and respectful curiosity as was the
last of the Revolutionary heroes. These
veterans are to leave precious heritage to
their sons, and its guarding and cherish
ing by them can have no other effect
than TO strengthen the bonds of the Union,
stimulate loyalty to free institutions and
cultivate that devotion of love for the
Republic that esteems life as holy sacri-
fee to be laid freely and voluntarily upon
the nations altar in the hour of peril.
Because the new Order will tend to fit
the sons of veterans the better to s,,c-
coed to the inestilnable privileges of Amer
lean citizenship, it ought to be encouraged.
Because it is eminently proper that the
veterans should commit the relics of the
Grand Army to their own sons for tender
keeping, the newborn society should be
commended.